1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related generally to knife sharpeners, and more particularly, the present invention concerns knife sharpeners with clamping members having embodiments to correspond with the knife in order to assure the blade is being held firmly and in an exact repeatable position.
2. Brief Description of Prior Art
Knife sharpeners are known for aiding in the manual sharpening of blades. In one commercially available design, a knife blade is clamped between two clamp members and a sharpening stone is guided along the edge of a blade by a rod member secured to a sharpener stone holder and in communication with a guide member. However, this prior art sharpener clamp has some deficiencies. One major problem is that it is virtually impossible to clamp a knife blade between the two clamp members in the same position on the knife in which the knife was installed the last time it was sharpened. The distance between the guide edges of the flange and the cutting edge of the knife blade may be different. The position of the holder lengthwise of the blade may also be different. The holder may be at a slightly different angle relative to the blade. Even when the difference in the position of the holder from the last sharpening of a particular knife is relatively small, sharpening nonetheless requires grinding a new edge with a different angle to the surface of the blade and removing a relatively large amount of blade material. Consequently, sharpening takes a relatively long time, and each sharpening reduces the life of the blade. This is the general deficiency that the present invention is intended to address.